1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital camera, and more specifically, to a digital camera with a personal identification.
2. Description of the Background Art
An image data formed by and stored in a digital camera is private information that should be protected against people other than a person who picked up the image. Therefore, either when a camera is stolen or when the camera is not stolen, the camera should forbid an undesirable case that a stranger freely views the data stored in the camera.
Therefore, there is a need for providing a camera with the personal identification function to protect user's privacy. Recently, biometrics technology has received attention as means to implement this function. By means of biometrics technology, human physical characteristics such as fingerprints, irises, and voiceprints could provide a personal identification system that forces a person neither to carry nor to memorize a specific identification such as a magnetic card or a password.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-115624 discloses a digital camera that recognizes a person other than the owner of the camera by fingerprints and prevents the person from picking up an image with the camera and from reproducing or making a copy of an image data already stored in the camera. In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-147623 discloses a digital camera that distinguishes people permitted to use the camera from non-permitted people by retina patterns.
However, those background arts only protect image data against a thief who stole the camera. More specifically, if several people are permitted to use the same camera alternately, one of them cannot protect his or her own data from the other ones. This is because any one of them is permitted to use the camera i.e. registered with the camera so that he or she may freely handle (reproduce, delete, or make a copy of) image data taken even by the others.